Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Many ages ago, before the first Star Wars movie started filming, George Lucas had trouble coming up with a name for his planned opus. Here we unearth his working title list, along with insight into his thought process:

The Star Wars (too
silly?)

The War of the Stars (getting
closer)

Starry Warriors (almost
there)

Starving Warriors of the Stars (sequel?)

Starry Star Stars (don’t
get punchy, George)

Starve Warts (save
this for another project)

Luke and Darth’s Amazing Adventure (now you’re thinking)

War Constellation (back
to war, huh. I think I’m on to something here. maybe check thesaurus for other
words for “war”)

Sunday, November 15, 2015

I haven't done any "finished" drawing in a long time, but I still try to draw at least once every day. I keep a little sketchbook by my desk and fill its pages with quick, stream-of-consciousness cartoons. It's a small sketchbook, something I could stick in my back pocket if I so desired, so I can fill up a page in just 2-3 minutes. It's a great exercise.

I hope to start drawing some "real" cartoons (and more single-panel gags) soon. Until then, here are some of the better spreads from the sketchbook I finished filling up a few minutes ago:

Each week I'll take a look at a different comic book related (in one way or another) to the Bicentennial. The first few posts are already up and I'll be posting new ones every week or so. My list of Bicentennial-themed comics has already almost doubled in size, and I've started looking into comic strips as well, so this could go on for quite a while.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

I was seven years old in July 1976, when the entire country colorfully celebrated the American Bicentennial. I remember school art projects, fireworks, parties, parades, all kinds of pins and other mementos, TV specials, and magazine covers.

Oh yeah, and comic books.

I honestly can't recall ever reading a Captain America comic book before Jack Kirby's Captain America's Bicentennial Battles, but that massive ("treasury"-sized) book quickly burned its way into my brain. I became a life-long fan of Steve Rogers, Jack Kirby, and, of course, history.

I still have my battered copy of Bicentennial Battles. I re-read it every few years. Of course in many ways it doesn't hold up, but in others it remains a high point of comics from that era.

But Bicentennial Battles is very lonely in my collection. Even though I fondly remember two other Bicentennial-themed comics from that year, they have long since left my possession. I want them back, and I want the rest.

Over the past few years, I have trimmed and slashed my comic-book collection over and over again. Now it's time to build it back up again, only in a more focused way. I'm going to pick a few kinds of comics that I want to collect and slowly seek them out.

Bicentennial comics shall come first.

It shouldn't be too hard. I've done some research. From what I can tell, there weren't all that many Bicentennial comics. Some of their connections to 1776/1976 were pretty tenuous. Quite a few were kids' comics. But I'm still going to try to track them down.

Here are the covers for most of the titles that I have identified so far. Some of them should be easy to find. Others may take a while. No worries, I'm not in a rush. I'll just try to finish my collection before the tricentennial.

This Adventure Comics issue is only Bicentennial-themed on its cover, but I still like it. (Similarly, almost every DC Comics title for July 1976 featured a cover banner proclaiming "DC Celebrates the Bicentennial!" As far as I'm concerned, those don't count as Bicentennial comics.)

The first of several underground comix on this list.

This was the only Batman comic to show it on the cover, but all of the above issues had Bicentennial-themed stories.

Not exactly patriotic, but I think my collection would be lacking if I didn't include this.

A restaurant freebie? I'm not sure if this will be worth tracking down, but I'll give it a shot.

This was actually the final issue in a 10-part storyline, starting in issue 193, all building up to the Bicentennial. Collect 'em all!

Okay, this one is a stretch. The only Bicentennial theme is a pun in the story title. But as a product of the time, it counts.

I don't think this issue contains any Bicentennial content aside from the cover, but apparently issue 15 does.

Who knew Dennis the Menace was so patriotic?

I had this one as a kid. Vague memories of it are what sent me down this trail.

Neither of these Jughead issues show any Spirit of 76 on the covers, but they each apparently contain Bicentennial-themed stories.

Another restaurant freebie.

Okay, so it's a calendar, not a comic book. Close enough.

A book, but it's about comics, so it counts.

I don't think the date on this one is quite correct, but the story is set in 1776.

You can't tell from the cover art, but the text tells us there's a Bicentennial story inside.

Another restaurant freebie. Hmm.

Shazam issue 25 also seems to have had a Bicentennial story.

I had this one, too. Hmm. Maybe giant-sized "treasuries" should be the next category that I collect!

Probably more in the comic strip column than comic books, but I'm intrigued.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

I have a room in my house devoted to books and comic books. Boxes and boxes of the damn things. They've been sitting there for a few months, ever since we moved from Maine to Oregon. Some day soon I'll start to buy some new bookcases, un-box the books and spread them around the house, but for now they'll just have to sit there where the movers dumped them this past August.

Hopefully it won't take too long to dig into those boxes, because I own hundreds (if not thousands) of books and comics that I haven't had a chance to read yet. I read an average of a book or two a week, but there's never enough time to truly catch up, is there? This year's move -- not to mention my excessive work schedule and the terrible health problems that plagued my family -- also served to slow down my reading.

I know you're waiting for the total, so here it is: I read 100 books this year. That's a lot, but it's quite a bit below the 119 books that I read in 2013 and the 115 that I read in 2012. It's also a much lower number of pages: I read more short books (primarily graphic novels) than anything else this year. That's an adaptation that I needed to make. With everything going on this past year, I just didn't have the luxury of focusing on longer, more involved novels as much as I wanted to.

I did read some damned good books, though. Top of the list, "Cabinet of Curiosities" by Guillermo del Toro. If you want to read something that will inspire you and kickstart your creativity, pick this one up.

Worst book? Well, I think the most disappointing one was "To Hell You Ride," a graphic novel by actor Lance Henriksen, whose extreme right-wing politics and conspiracy theories destroy a story that had a lot of potential.

Now, looking at books alone hardly captures the true depth of my reading in 2014. I read a LOT of articles, short stories, individual comic books and essays that could never be tallied in a way like this.

Looking ahead, I'm going to work hard to get back to reading novels this year. I have a few boxes of them ready and waiting for me, after all.

This was a busy, busy year. In addition to moving all the way across the country -- no small endeavor, let me tell you -- I worked my tail off. Well, more specifically my fingers. I published 286 articles last year, ranging from short news posts to massive magazine features. That averages to about one article per work day, although some of the articles took months of work to pull together.

This is actually the lowest number of articles I have published in years (I published 392 in 2013 and more than 400 in 2012), but I concentrated on more involved work that had a greater impact. I also dramatically increased my per-article fee as a result (something freelancers always need to focus on achieving).

I have a lot of other favorites from this past year -- they're all my babies -- but I think for the purposes of this post I'll narrow it down to two, one more for SA and another for TakePart:Found: A Snake Species No One Believed Existed